The invention relates to a matte box, i.e. an adjustable baffle plate for a lens of a movie or TV camera. The baffle plate comprises a light gate which essentially only lets the light required for the taking of pictures strike into the camera lens and keeps away undesired stray light or extraneous light from the camera lens. The light gate has a rear add-on tube in the form of a ring, which can be slipped onto the tube of the camera lens with little clearance and supports the light gate and faces the camera, into which the tube of the camera lens immerses up to a specific immersion depth. The rear edge of the add-on tube, which faces the camera is substantially in one plane, the immersion depth of the tube of the camera lens is in the range of from 0 to 20 mm, in particular 10 to 20 mm, into this add-on tube.
Such baffle plates are e.g. known from DE 43 12 654.
Often, baffle plates additionally have devices for receiving plane glass filters. It is important in the case of the taking of movie and TV pictures that light reflections that influence the taking of the pictures are prevented to the greatest possible extent, namely also such light reflections from light sources that are situated behind the camera. For this purpose it is indispensable that the distance, i.e. the clearance between the add-on tube of the baffle plate and the tube of the camera lens is only relatively small and the immersion depth of the camera lens into the add-on tube is relatively large. In known solutions the clearance is, as a rule, in the range of from 0.5 to 1 mm, e.g. 0.75 mm, and the immersion depth is approx. 14 mm.
In addition, it must be possible to laterally swing away modern professional baffle plates, for instance for exchanging the lens. Consequently, all so-called swing-away systems known so far have a device which, initially, moves the baffle plate forward with respect to the lens to such an extent that the covering of the rear add-on tube with respect to the tube of the lens is reversed and then releases a joint, about which the baffle plate can be swung.
The construction required for this is relatively expensive.